The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1887-02-04
PREHISTORIC AFRICA.
The Remarkable Ruins that Have
Been Found Among the
Savages.

The readers of Mr.. Haggard's new
story "She" will remember that when
his little party Of adventures passed in
their boats from the sea into an east
African river, they found on the bank
wall OF stone that had evidently been
solldly constructed wharf in some re
mote period. In foot note he justifes
this conceit by alluding to the ruins OF
a very ancient city on the coast at
Kilwa, south Of Zanzibar. 1t happens
that 500 miles nearer the region in
which he has placed his story there are
evidences of past civilization that are
lncomparably greater than those he
mentions.
Some way south of the Zambesi River
there is a large region extending from
the sea nearly 400 miles inland, and 300
to 400 miles toward the south, in which
ruins are constantly being discovered,
proving that in prehistoric times the
country was inhabited by a civilized
people. To-day only the rudest black
tribes inhabit this land, save in a few
places where the Portuguese have es-
tablished stations. The little beehive
huts of the natives are seen among
massive ruins betokening a degree of
architectural skill which rivals that of
the ancient Aztecs. Our knowledge of
these ruins isIstill far fromperfect. Our
earliest records of travel and trade on
the east African coast, extending back
to the beginning of the Christian era,
do not mention them. Only in recent
years have the travels of Selous, Err
skine, Mauch, Baines, Mohr and O'Neill
revealed to US the monumental evil
dence this country contains.
The cost town Sofala is shown on all
maps of East Africa. Near that town
Carl Mauch found extensive ruins re-
markable for their enduring nature and
strange shapes. There are partly ruined
walls, still thirty feet high and twelve
feet wide at the base, built of small
heWn blocks of granite. In these walls,
sometimes fifteen or twenty feet from
the ground are embedded one end of
blocks of stone eighteen to twenty feet
long, which were evidently used to
support galleries. Here and there,
built in the walls or standing by them
selves, are round stone towers which
evidently rose to heights of thirty to
fifty feet. Similar masses of masonry
are found as far as $50 miles inland and
little north near the coast.
1t is not positively known yet who
built these ancient structures. No
trained archeelogist has visited them,
and no search has yet been made for
inscriptions, though O'Neill;says he has
no doubt from what he has recently
heard that there are numerous inscrip-
tons on the ruins about Manica. All
these ruins are surrounded by surface
gold mines. 1t is believed that all this
country was occupied some time before
the Christian era by great colony,
probably of Phenician origin, and that
its chief occupation was gold mining.
Mr.. O'Neil says that these numerous
ruins are nearly as we'll preserved as
those OF ancient Egypt, and better than
those of ancient Egypt, and better than
those of Assyria. Some day, no doubt,
they will be Systematically studied.
Their existence shows conclusively
that large reg on in inner Africa, now
given up to savage men and wild beasts,
was subject many centuries ago to the
control Of people who were consider
ably advanced in the arts of civilization.
New York Sun.